Khadaji’s Whatcha Reading Thread - January 2025 edition

Cafe Society
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2025 is upon us, another year… another gray hair! On the other hand my house will be paid for this year, I turn 60 this year and T. Kingfisher has a new book coming out. Works for me!

So Whatcha reading?

I was reading The Doomsday Book by Connie Willis until I got sick and the library took it back. But I’m in line to get it again and finish it.

Khadaji was one of the earlier members of SDMB, and he was well-known as a kindly person who always had something encouraging to say, particularly in the self-improvement threads. He was also a voracious, omnivorous reader, who started these threads 'way back in the Stone Age of 2005. Consequently, when he suddenly and quite unexpectedly passed away in January 2013, we decided to rename this thread in his honor and to keep his memory, if not his ghost, alive.

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Last Month: Bye-bye 2024

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I read through Alan Moore and Kevin O’Neill’s The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: Vol IV Tempest, which I['d requested for Christmas. I hadn’t read the individual issues, so this was something new.

Of course, a single go-through is inadequate. The volumes are al rich in obscure references and self-references. I like the 3D scenes, although they don’t really add much. I particularly like Moore and O’Neill getting thrown out of the wedding scene near the end, a very specific call-out to Stan Lee and Jack Kirby trying to get into the wedding of Sue Storm and Reed Richards at the end of Fantastic Four Annual #3. It was set up by the two of them comparing themselves to Lee and Kirby earlier on, but the only people who will get the joke are older fans like me and truly immersive comic book geeks who have read the story in question. It first appeared in 1965 and, although it’s been reprinted several times since (fifteen times, according to one database), it’s still not really common.

I also re-read A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens. I picked up a facsimile edition of the first edition, and it’s a very easy and compelling read. Dickens’ odd sense of humor is in top form, and not intrusive.

I’ve also been reading Bill The Galactic Hero 6 – The Final Incoherent Adventure by David Harris and Harry Harrison. I hadn’t read this one before.

On audio, I finally finished Stephen King’s 11/22/63 and am reading Terry Pratchett’s The Hogfather, which I haven’t read before. I haven’t read most of PTerry’s Discworld stories, in fact.

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I liked 11/22/63 very much. It’s a great time-travel story about a watershed event in American history and all in all one of King’s best, I’d say. Two friends of mine, both well-informed about the JFK assassination and one of them a retired Warren Commission staff lawyer, say King and his researcher really got the facts right (although it is, of course, still a novel).

Recently zipped through The Shadow Over Innsmouth by H.P. Lovecraft, manga adapted and with artwork by Gou Tanabe. He captures the flavor and underlying creepiness of Lovecraft’s story well. Most of the book is in black and white, but the colored images of Devil Reef and its denizens are particularly striking.

Also finished John McPhee’s book Oranges, originally a lengthy 1966 New Yorker article, all about the fruit, its role in history, its integration into Western cuisine and how it’s cultivated today (or was, at the time McPhee wrote it). Mostly interesting; McPhee has a calm, conversational style that I enjoy.

I’m almost halfway through John Scalzi’s Starter Villain, a crime comedy with a sf gloss, and still enjoying it.

I’m also now listening to an audiobook of Mark Twain’s 1885 novel Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, which I’d never read before. It’s pretty good. I’ve been interested to see how well Percival Everett’s recent novel James, supposedly the same tale as told from the perspective of Huck’s companion and friend, fits in with it. So far, relatively well, although Everett moves the story several decades closer to the Civil War and gives James (“Jim” in Twain’s original) a wife and a child. The N-word is liberally sprinkled throughout Twain’s book, but it’s appropriate for both the period and for Huck, the teller of the tale.

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Just finished The Legacy of Arniston House, fourth in the Edinburgh Nights series by T.L. Huchu. I enjoyed it, but towards the end, some truly tragic and disheartening things happen, and then it ends on a cliffhanger. How very 2024 of it.

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John McPhee wrote a terrific book called The Control of Nature, which I strongly recommend.

Just started Book and Dagger: How Scholars and Librarians Became the Unlikely Spies of World War II, by Elyse Graham.

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Finished The Waiting by Michael Connelly. Another fine read by a great storyteller. Connelly has the ability to interweave 3 or 4 sub-plots around the major plot, all of which reach satisfying conclusions.

Next up: The Thursday Murder Club by Richard Osman.

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Agree. The first section (which I’ve got on audio) about the California cycle of earthquake-forest fire - rain – mudslide is very important and revealing about how Southern California got to be the way it is.

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“Where is human nature so weak as in a bookstore?”
Yesterday on my walking tour of Boston (it had been too long since I had last visited) I stopped in the Brattle Book Shop, that wonderful used book shop in downtown. I picked up

Anyone who owns his own Home Deserves It by Alan King and Kathryn Ryan, a book I’ve read before, but I can’t find my copy

The World’s Desire by H. Rider Haggard, one of his I haven’t yet read. Odysseus and Helen of TRoy.

Swords of Shahrazar by Robert E. Howard – a collection of his near eastern action stories from the pulps

Frank Reade: Adventures in the Age of Adventure by the husband and wife team of Paul Guinan and Anina Bennett. This book takes the view that Frank Reade and his son, who featured in the late 19th-early20th century proto Tom-Swift adventures, were real people. It features made-up documnts and photographs, and works them into real historical contexts. What interested me was that they worked Katy Reade into it and had her the companion of “Tex” Guinan, who was definitely a real person and, presumably, a relative of Paul. I knew about her because she appears in a photograph of submarine S-49 in Chicago, promoting the sub and the Fair. Sadly, she died just over four months later of amoebic dysinterythat she picked up in Chicago. Just a month later Prohibition was repealed (“Tex” was notorious as a runner of speakeasies and bar culture). The character of Guinan (played by Whoopi Goldberg) on Star Trek Next Generation was named after her.
Paul and Anina had previously written a similar book called Boilerplate about a 19th century robot who showed up in the company of historical figures, sort of Zelig- and Forrest Gump-like.I hadnt heard of it before.

Also, for Christmas I received a copy of Dance of the Comedians: 75 Years of the Road Runner and Wile E. Coyote by Dan Sendker. It appears to have more than you ever wanted to know about the Chuck Jones-created duo, their prehistory, and their post-history.

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Oh, yeah, I forgot another Christmas present. Drinking with the Saints: The Sinner’s Guide to a Holy Happy Hour by Michael P. Foley – A surprisingly thick book that combines Legends of the Saints with recipes for themed cocktails. So you can drink a San Sebastian (Gin, Rum, Grapefruit juice, Triple sec, and Lemon juice) while contemplating the sacrifice of Saint Sebastian (January 20, shot with arrows and the subject of numerous paintings. Apparently he recovered miraculously and got to be martyred a second time by being beaten to death with clubs, which i can’t recall any paintings of.

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Thanks for the tip!

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Started today on the current volume of Best Horror of the Year, edited by Ellen Datlow.

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Started the audiobook City of Illusions by Ursula K LeGuin. I don’t believe I’ve read it before, it’s not familiar. I can say that my taste in literature has changed over 50 years and I greatly prefer character driven over plot driven books.

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Tonight I finished John Scalzi’s Starter Villain, a crime comedy with a sf gloss, and thoroughly enjoyed it. Lots of twists and turns, memorable moments and funny lines, with a very, very satisfying conclusion. My paperback edition includes a bonus short story, “Hera Baldwin Gets a Financial Advisor,” which despite its blah title was also quite good - even charming, in its own way.

Almost halfway through my audiobook of Mark Twain’s 1885 novel Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. I can’t say I’m loving it, but I’ll finish it.

Zipped through the YA Civil War history book The Monitor and the Merrimac and Other Naval Battles by Fletcher Pratt, with illustrations by the incomparable John O’Hara Cosgrave II. I remember having read this book as a preteen.

Also zipped through The Pocket Sherlock Holmes, a collection of games and puzzles. No author is listed anywhere in it; Amazon says it’s by Gemini, which is the publisher. I know my 221B Baker Street lore pretty well, but several of the trivia quizzes nearly stumped me.

Just started God Save the Queen by Australian author Dennis Altman, about “the strange persistence of monarchies” and how they might, with the rise of authoritarian regimes in too many democracies these days, provide a useful check on the abuse of power (while also helping rake in tourist money).

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I love Twain, but the Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn books are not my favorites. Nevertheless, I think Huckleberry Finn has a claim to being The Great American Novel. I recommend the Annotated edition, which is the one I last read.

Fletcher Pratt is well-known as a science fiction author. I was unaware of this book, but not surprised. Long before War Simulation games like the ones Avalon Hill came out with were popular with the general public, Pratt used to run naval campaigns on the floor of his home, inviting other authors to participate. He use models and a scaled-down playing area to siimulate famous naval battles.

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Agreed as to Huck Finn being TGAN, or at least AGAN, although I’m finding it a bit of a slog. I’m mostly reading it to see how well it fits together with Percival Everett’s James.

Hadn’t known about Pratt’s naval wargaming, but his Wiki bio bears you out. Thanks.

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Hi, everyone - Happy New Year! Here’s what’s on my reading pile at present.

US history and politics - in an attempt to better understand my new home, I’ve been going through a number of books…

Finished “American History - a Very Short Introduction” by Paul S. Boyer

“American Politics - a Very Short Introduction” by Richard M. Valelly - both part of the Oxford University Press ‘Very Short Introductions’ series, which I absolutely love. They are very clearly written, well researched, and have excellent lists for further reading. For “American Politics”, I found myself thinking that either a) the author has a right wing bias, or b) the author is exposing my left wing bias through his neutral writing, or c) the book reflects the fact that it was written in 2013, before a number of unprecedented events. At the very least, the author was somehow not as concerned as I am about questions of money in elections, Citizens United, the ‘personhood’ of corporate entities, the rise of dis- and mis-information, the biases of the media, the apparent irrelevance of character, and the list could just go on from there.

“How to Read the Constitution - and Why” by Kim Wehle. A fantastic book outlining the different ways in which the US constitution has been interpreted, the different ways in which it can be interpreted, and the importance of participation in the US democracy. Also, the section on what it would take for a group of states to effect a change in the US constitution is quite sobering.

I’ve almost finished “A People’s History of the United States” by Howard Zinn, which is outstanding!

And I’m well into “America’s Constitution - a Biography” by Akhil Reed Amar. It is very enlightening to read someone who is so enthusiastic about the US constitution and the process that went in to writing it.

Also about a quarter of the way through “Becoming a U. S. Citizen - a Guide to the Law, Exam & Interview, 11th edition” by Ilona Bray. While this is early innings (I won’t be in a position to apply for US citizenship for at least 32 months, and possibly 56 months), it doesn’t hurt to start well in advance. Also, this book is filling in a number of points that many US-based writers assume the reader already knows or knows about.

I’m about 18 pages into “The Rediscovery of America - Native Peoples and the Unmaking of U. S. History” by Ned Blackhawk, and while I find the writing engaging and the subject fascinating, someone else has the book on hold and I’m very unlikely to finish it before it’s due back tomorrow.

Then I have another reading project on the go, which is researching Walt Whitman. This may turn into a Whitman based show or performance, or may just lead to me finding some places in Brooklyn, on Long Island, or in Camden, NJ in which to read some Walt Whitman for inspiration and insight. The pile includes scholarly works and children’s books, cause that’s the way I roll.

Finished - “O Captain, My Captain - Walt Whitman, Abraham Lincoln, and the Civil War” by Robert Burleigh, Illustrations by Sterling Hundley. The illustrations are wonderful, with both Whitman and Lincoln out of scale with the rest of the image. Well told, good background work, and a fine ‘further reading’ list, which is where/hom I caught up to -

“The Cambridge Companion to Walt Whitman”, Edited by Ezra Greenspan
“Walt Whitman” by Catherine Reef, and
“The Better Angel - Walt Whitman in the Civil War” by Roy Morris, Jr.

And as part of an ongoing reading project, I’m reading all the Terry Pratchett “Discworld” novels in order of publication, whether I’ve read them before or not. I’m now up to “Moving Pictures”, which is new to me.

Now, if any of you have any recommendations of books on US history, US politics - I’m particularly interested in the Colonial period and the relations between settler/colonist peoples and the First Nations or Indigenous peoples, as I find many writers suffer from some sort of post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy. There was a time when the US/Canada border did not exist, and the First Nations were distinct from one another.

I also feel the need to confess - I’ve been doing a weekly reading reel on my Instagram account for a little over a year now, and I refer to it as ‘Whatcha Readin’. It’s nowhere near as cool as this monthly thread, though… I hope you can forgive my plagarism!

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Finished Book and Dagger: How Scholars and Librarians Became the Unlikely Spies of World War II, by Elyse Graham. I enjoyed this book at first, but found that it includes a great deal of material I’d already read elsewhere. I was also somewhat annoyed by the author’s tendency to write down conversations as she imagines they might have sounded.

Now I’m reading The Human Comedy, by William Saroyan and The Oxford Book of Theatrical Anecdotes, edited by Gyles Brandreth. I’m planning to read the latter over an extended period since it’s so long.

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The Wide, Wide Sea, by Hampton Sides. A well-written history of Captain Cook’s 3rd voyage. He really brings Cook and his sailors to life, and there are interesting bits such as the fact that William Bligh was one of his officers and George Vancouver was one of his midshipmen. It was an amazing voyage of exploration into arctic waters that no white man had ever seen, seeking the ever-elusive Northwest Passage, and an excellent biography of possibly the greatest explorer who ever lived.

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I’m sure Khadaji would be proud.

I started The Ministry of Time by Kaliane Bradley. It… well not sure what exactly it is, kind of AU fanfiction for Lt. Graham Gore, who died in the ill fated Franklin Expedition of 1848. So far I’m enjoying it.